Private schools rake in $2b windfall

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PRIVATE schools across Australia are receiving at least $2
billion more than their entitlements under the Federal Government's
school funding scheme.

The Catholic school system and independent Catholic schools
receive most of this bonanza, netting an extra $1.6 billion for the
2005-2008 period.

Other independent schools received $428 million above their
assessed rate under the Government's controversial "socio-economic
status" (SES) method of calculating federal assistance to
individual private schools.

Under the formula, the schools would normally be entitled to
about $23 billion over the four-year period. But because of a
"grandfather clause" which protected wealthier schools from losing
out if the formula was fully applied, many better-off schools have
been able to maintain their funding at a far higher level.

According to Senate Estimates committee data, analysed by the
Greens, these schools were funded at more than their formula levels
over the period 2005 to 2008 at a cost to the Commonwealth
education budget of $2.071 billion.

The Catholic system has its funding maintained at a level equal
to 58 per cent of the cost of educating a child in the public
system. It is seeking to lift that to at least 60 per cent, the
Catholic Education Commission's executive director, Brian Croke,
says.

The Federal Government is conducting an internal review of its
funding formula, which on present estimates will deliver about
$27.6 billion to private schools during the next four-year cycle,
between 2009 and 2012.

The Government will spend a total of $40 billion on public and
private schools over the four years and is consulting the main
stakeholders behind closed doors.

The Greens education spokesman, John Kaye, an engineering
academic with a background in financial modelling, said the figures
challenged the Federal Government's approach to private school
funding.

"The Howard Government cannot have it both ways. Either they
genuinely believe in their SES system or they don't."

The executive director of the Association of Independent Schools
of NSW, Geoff Newcombe, said the non-government schools received
what they were entitled to according to levels legislated by the
Federal Parliament.

"This latest attack by the Greens against the one-third of
families who send their children to non-government schools is
simply based on ideology and is not a rational position in respect
of how school education operates in this country," Dr Newcombe
said.

Dr Croke said the criticism from the Greens represented a
failure to understand how the formula works.

"They are falling into the trap of naively assuming that SES is
so scientific that it can be applied absolutely. It is implying
there is something dishonest about what the schools are receiving.
Funding maintenance is an integral part of the SES-based
system."

The King's School headmaster, Tim Hawkes, said the Government's
formula for funding private schools was an improvement on the old
model and relatively simple to understand, because it was based on
the presumed wealth of a school's parents.

"Given that the SES model is probably as good as any model and
one that the federal Labor Party has had difficulty improving upon,
it is curious that the Federal Government has such a weak
commitment to it," he said.

A spokesman for the Education Minister, Senator Julie Bishop,
said she was awaiting recommendations from the funding review. "The
Coalition government does not believe in taking funding away from
schools," he said.